Tallahassee Democrat: Policy change at FAMU brings up faculty’s right to know
What started out as a routine policy change for Florida A&M’s trustees last week turned into a right-to-know issue for faculty.
At a trustee sub-committee meeting, members were asked to approve a policy change that would require annual performance evaluations for six FAMU executives. However, wording of the policy change included faculty.
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Posted in Governance
Tagged Administration, FAMU, Governance
WCF Courier: Hawkeye faculty ‘shocked’ by layoffs
WATERLOO — Faculty members at Hawkeye Community College are reeling following notification last week that 43 instructors will lose their jobs.
“The general mood of the individuals involved is that they are shocked, angry and very disappointed to have been treated in this fashion,” said Arlyn Ristau, former president of the Hawkeye Professional Educators Association.
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Posted in Budgets & Funding
Sun Sentinel: FAU says no to recommended faculty raises
BOCA RATON – Florida Atlantic University is rejecting a magistrate’s recommendation to give larger raises to faculty.
The university and the United Faculty of Florida have been at impasse since November over faculty salaries. Special Magistrate Joseph M. Schneider recommended the university offer a one-year 2.5 percent raise, saying that should be “the minimum salary increase needed to keep faculty salaries competitive in the labor market.” The recommendation was nonbinding, but the union believed FAU should have abided by it.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Collective bargaining, Florida Atlantic U, Legal issues, Salary/Economic Benefits
World Socialist Website: New York police attack protesting New School students
In a display of brutality, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested 22 students who had occupied the premises of the New School in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village last Friday. Students were struck by police without provocation and thrown to the ground, and others were pepper-sprayed.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged New School, police attack, Protests
Los Angeles Times: UCLA professor stands up to violent animal rights activists
J. David Jentsch organizes a campus rally April 22 of those who believe biomedical testing on animals saves human lives. His car was set on fire March 7, allegedly by opponents of testing.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged Animal rights, UCLA
Inside Higher Ed: Arbitrator Rules Against Prof Who Didn’t Want Extra Course
The University of Florida did not violate collective bargaining rules by requiring a professor to teach an additional course, an independent arbitrator has concluded. Florence Babb, an endowed professor and graduate coordinator of the university’s Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research, challenged Florida’s decision to change her teaching load, saying her employment agreement stipulated that she would only be required to teach one course each semester. Given significant budget challenges, Florida officials increased Babb’s teaching requirements. Babb is now required to teach three courses over the spring and fall semesters, in addition to carrying out her duties as graduate coordinator for the women’s studies center. Ben Falcigno, an arbitrator who reviewed the case, based his decision on Babb’s 2004 appointment letter. The letter states that the “normal” course load for Babb would be two courses a year, but Falcigno concluded current budget constraints constitute “abnormal” conditions that allow the university to increase Babb’s teaching requirements. Babb was represented by the United Faculty of Florida, a statewide union affiliated with the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. Pradeep Kumar, who represented Babb for the union, said the arbitration ruling is binding and won’t be appealed. Babb could not be reached for comment.
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Posted in Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Collective bargaining, teaching load, Unions, Working conditions
Inside Higher Ed: Murky Picture for Faculty Salaries
On paper, the annual report on faculty salaries being released today by the American Association of University Professors suggests a good year for professors’ pay. The average increase across all categories was found to be 3.4 percent for 2008-9. While that’s down from last year’s average of 3.8 percent, last year’s total was outpaced by inflation, while this year’s gains came amid virtually no inflation (at least according to official statistics).
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Salary/Economic Benefits
New School Free Press: New School in Exile update
On March 29, members of The New School in Exile and Radical Student Union met at the 6th Street Community Center. During the two and a half hour meeting, they finalized plans for shutting down the university on April 1 if New School President Bob Kerrey and Executive Vice President Jim Murtha do not resign. The groups’ April 1 plans will include, but are not limited to, various public events including roving rallies starting in front of 66 W. 12 St. at 2 p.m. and moving around to all the Village campuses. However, it’s not clear if the school will be shut down. A subset of the meeting discussed another occupation that they are planning.
The New York Times: At New School Protest, Truth Depends on Camera Angle
So much for the camera never lying.
The arrests of protesters who seized a building at the New School on Friday turned into something of a race to YouTube, as sharply contrasting videos recorded by the police and civilians conveyed vastly different impressions of what was going on — and, more specifically, just who was doing what to whom.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged New School, Protests
The Chronicle: New School Is Rocked by Student Protests Again
The New School, in Manhattan, was rocked by protests again over the weekend, as students who are demanding Bob Kerrey’s resignation as the university’s president clashed with the police after occupying a campus building on Friday and staged a rally near the campus on Friday night.
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Posted in Protests
Tagged New School, Protests
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Salary/Economic Benefits
AP: Beijing professor’s remarks spark angry protests
BEIJING (AP) — Protesters tried to storm their way into one of China’s top universities Friday to confront a professor who said nearly all petitioners — people who come to Beijing to ask the central government for help — are mentally ill and should be put away.
Law professor Sun Dongdong’s comments, published in a March issue of China Newsweek magazine, triggered outrage among petitioners who routinely flock to Beijing by the thousands to air complaints after their local governments ignore them.
Times-Picayune: Ivor van Heerden, who pointed fingers in Hurricane Katrina levee failures, fired by LSU
Ivor van Heerden, the outspoken coastal scientist who led the state’s independent Team Louisiana investigation into Hurricane Katrina levee failures, has been notified by Louisiana State University that he will be terminated as a research professor in May 2010.
Van Heerden, who is not a tenured professor, also has been stripped of his title as deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center. Also, engineering professor Marc Levitan has stepped down as the center’s director. University officials say they will reshape the center’s research direction in the wake of the moves.
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Posted in Academic freedom
Tagged Academic freedom, Free speech, hurricane research, LSU, New Orleans, Research, Termination, Whitle-blowers
Salt Lake Tribune: U. humanities dean accused of defaming prof
A defamation lawsuit filed Monday alleges the University of Utah’s Middle East Center is hemorrhaging faculty, putting at risk the federal grant that has sustained the center for nearly 50 years.
U. administrators say they are committed to the center’s survival and growth, even in the face of evaporating budgets and competing needs.
U. humanities dean Robert Newman was sued by Hebrew professor Harris Lenowitz, after alleging last year that he and another veteran scholar from the center were contributing to a hostile environment for female faculty.
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Posted in Legal issues
Tagged Legal issues, Working conditions
The Columbus Dispatch: Admissions officer puts newspaper in the trash
With prospective students and their parents visiting campus, an Ohio Wesleyan University employee decided he didn’t much care for a front-page story in the student newspaper.
Flanked by a photo of a beer bottle, The Transcript story detailed “The 50-Day Club,” a tradition in which seniors observe the days to graduation with two drinks a day at a Delaware bar.
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Posted in Free speech
Tagged Admissions, Free speech, Student newspapers
The Chronicle: Professors’ Pay Raises Beat Inflation; So Much for the Good News
Faculty pay has been battered by the deepening national recession, but you can’t tell that from the American Association of University Professors’ new annual report on the economic status of the profession. The average salary of a full-time faculty member rose 3.4 percent in 2008-9, it says, a rate well above inflation.
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Posted in Salary/Economic Benefits
Tagged Salary/Economic Benefits
Inside Higher Ed: A Presidential Critic, Fired
After a career of 27 years teaching business at Stillman College, and despite holding a tenured position, Ekow O. Hayford was fired last year, in violation of his academic freedom, according to a report being issued today by the American Association of University Professors. The report found that Hayford was fired without due process after he publicly criticized the president of the college, a historically black institution in Alabama.
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Posted in Academic freedom, Free speech
Tagged AAUP, Academic freedom, Free speech, University presidents, Worker rights
KOMU.com: Conceal and Carry Changes
JEFFERSON CITY – The Missouri House voted to lift a ban on carrying concealed weapons at state colleges and universities in the state.
Yesterday the House voted 106 to 41 to lift the ban. The nation is currently split on the issue. Twenty-five states prohibit concealed carry on campus. The MU Police Department does not support firearms on campus.
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Posted in Safety & Security
Tagged Guns, Working conditions
Houston Chronicle: Campus guns bill gaining support in Texas House
AUSTIN — Legislation allowing state university students and employees to carry their concealed handguns on campus appears to have enough pledged support from lawmakers to pass the full Texas House.
The bill would prohibit public universities across Texas from creating rules that forbid concealed handgun license holders from carrying their pistols into a classroom, but it would allow private institutions to exempt themselves.
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Posted in Safety & Security
Tagged Guns, Texas, Working conditions
Boston Globe: Clark drops Holocaust scholar
Schedule conflict, controversy cited
Clark University canceled a campus talk scheduled for later this month by controversial Holocaust scholar Norman Finkelstein, saying his presence “would invite controversy and not dialogue or understanding,” and would conflict with a similar event scheduled around the same time.
The Clark University Students for Palestinian Rights, a student-run group on the Worcester campus, had arranged for Finkelstein to speak on April 21, said Tom MacMillan, the group’s president. School administrators, however, contend the topic and the timing conflict with a similar university-sponsored event.
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Posted in Free speech
Tagged Academic freedom, Clark University, Free speech, Norman Finkelstein
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